The over-development threat to Southfields

By Josh Kaile, Labour’s Candidate In Southfields

For the last three years or so, the dominant over-development threat to our area has been the plan to build two 42-storey towers on the Ram Brewery site in Wandsworth Town. For comparison, the tallest tower block anywhere in our area is just across the road from the site – Sudbury House above Southside shopping centre, which is 28 storeys. So the Ram Brewery plans would have added towers one third taller than the tallest we have right now.

We all know how visible and from how far away the Southside towers are: just imagine for an instant the impact the Ram skyscrapers will have on an area which is characterised by low-rise, human scale development.

The Ram Brewery plans were stopped in their tracks when the then Labour Government ordered a public inquiry into them. But they haven’t gone away: they’re just dormant; indeed in only a matter or weeks or months the developers – hand-in-glove with the Conservative Council – will bring back a new application and yet again expect it to be rubber-stamped.